COUNTA

Counts the non-empty values in the list of arguments.

Syntax:

COUNTA(value1, value2, ... value30)

value1 to value30 are up to 30 values or ranges representing the values to be counted.

Example:

COUNTA(B1:B3)

where cells B1, B2, B3 contain 1.1, =NA(), apple returns 3, because none of the cells in B1:B3 are empty.

COUNTA(2, 4, "dog")

returns 3, because 2, 4 and "dog" are all numbers or text.

COUNTA(D1)

where cell D1 contains ="", returns 1, because "" is a string (although of zero length).

In this table, "Submitted" means the student turned in the homework. An empty cell means they did not.

To find out how many students submitted at least one assignment, or how many assignments were submitted by a single student, you can use the COUNTA function.

Example 1: Counting how many students submitted homework on Wednesday.

You would apply the COUNTA function to the "Homework 3 (Wednesday)" column. The function would look at cells D1 through D6.

• Cell D1 (Alex): "Submitted" (non-empty)
• Cell D2 (Beth): "Submitted" (non-empty)
• Cell D3 (Chris): (empty)
• Cell D4 (Dani): "Submitted" (non-empty)
• Cell D5 (Ethan): "Submitted" (non-empty)
• Cell D6 (Faye): (empty)

The COUNTA function would count the non-empty cells and return a result of 4. This tells you that 4 students submitted their homework on Wednesday.

Example 2: Counting how many assignments a single student has submitted.

Let's find out how many assignments Beth has submitted. You would apply the COUNTA function to the row for Beth (cells B2 through F2).

• Cell B2: "Submitted" (non-empty)
• Cell C2: "Submitted" (non-empty)
• Cell D2: "Submitted" (non-empty)
• Cell E2: "Submitted" (non-empty)
• Cell F2: (empty)

The COUNTA function would count the non-empty cells and return a result of 4. This shows that Beth has submitted 4 out of the 5 assignments.